


you carry a part of me

by ThePackWantstheD



Series: Rambling Headcanon Fics [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-12 00:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15983777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: In world were the significant events of your life leave tattoos on your soulmates au, Shiro's skin is blank until Lance McClain is born.





	1. our starting point

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I just really wanted to do more for this headcanon, so I put it here so I can do just that.   
> For anyone interested there's also an ongoing [Lance/James Griffin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15976808) version of this fic.

You know those aus where the significant events of your life leave marks on your skin? What about a soulmate au where the significant events in your life leave marks on your SOULMATES skin? 

Shiro doesn’t have marks for the first few years of his life. His parents aren’t really concerned about it since he’s so young and it’s likely his soulmate is just a little younger than him, but Shiro sees his parents and Ryou, his twin brother, with their painted skin, sees how his classmates show off new marks that they get, and feels sharp pants of jealous. He wants to be like them, wants to have someone the same way that his family and classmates do. 

Then, the summer after he turns eight, he wakes up one day with a large bundle of Mariposa flowers right over his heart, because Lance is only a baby but already Shiro’s body knows that Lance will value his culture and his family. They are Lance’s heart, something he’s proud and fond of. More flowers appear as Lance grows older and meets more of his family, as Marco gets married and has two kids, as Luis brings home a girlfriend that they all know he’s not going to break up with. By the time Shiro is twenty-two there are so many of them, petals folded against others and stems intertwined, that Shiro has lost count. It doesn’t stop him from tracing his fingers over the flowers in his low moments, finding comfort in the first tattoo that he ever got. 

Lance is born with a red chrysanthemum and rose between his shoulder blades, twining together. They are marks for Shiro’s parents, his Japanese father and his American mother. They love each other, shown in how they wrap around each other even on Lance's skin, and they love Shiro. They teach him to stand tall and keep his head straight. The flowers are also a symbol of what Shiro is, of the mix of cultures that make up who he is and how he does things. He is Japanese, but he is also American and Shiro learns to be proud of both of those things.

Lance is born with two identical tattoos of chain wrapped around his wrists, symbols of Shiro and his twin, Ryou. When Lance is young the links of the chains are looped so tightly that it's difficult to distinguish one chain loop from the next. As Ryou and Shiro forge their own paths and grow apart the links of the chain become loose, but it never breaks. Shiro loves his brother - distance and different dreams are not enough to break that bond.

The final mark Lance is born with is a small green snake, a sign of the jealousy and envy Shiro had felt as a child. But the snake is curled up, looping in on itself with it’s head resting and it’s eyes closed. The jealousy was important to Shiro’s life but Lance’s birth and the appearance of Shiro’s first tattoo are enough to set it to rest. 

 

 

Lance gains more marks as Shiro grows up.

Shiro’s father dies when he’s nine years old. Three incense sticks appear on Lance’s right legs, because his father had taught Shiro to stand tall. Shiro will never experience a death more significant, more crippling, than his fathers.

His mother moves them to America shortly afterwards, finding that her husband’s homeland holds too many memories of him for her to stay, and a sakura tree appears on Lance’s lower back. Shiro will never forget the home that made him, where he was born and raised and grew up.

When Shiro discovers flying and the feeling of wind in his hair, a paper plane etches itself on the back of Lance’s neck. It’s directed as if it’s flying into Lance’s hair, Shiro’s desire to go further and see more then anyone else etched into it’s direction.

Shiro has disappointed people before, but when he’s in the Garrison and feels - for the first time - the crushing feeling that comes with disappointing people who have so much faith in him, a cloud made of depressing blacks and grays appears on Lance’s hip.

When Shiro meets Keith, when he finds this boy who he connects with and takes under his wing, a charm in the shape of a Celtic knot appears on the bracelet surrounding Lance’s right wrist. Lance’s bracelets are Shiro and his brother, so it makes sense that Shiro’s new brother would be represented there as well.

 

Shiro gains more marks as Lance grows up.

His upper arms gain bands to symbolize Lance’s greatest passions. On the right arm is a band of water. The side facing the outside of Shiro’s arm is filled with rough rolling waves, the inside calm waters and shadows that imply the creatures living in it’s depths. On the left is a thin band of black sky, interrupted by several bright white stars and a ship flying through it. Lance loves flying, but he wanted to fly so that he could see the stars, so it makes sense that his love of flying incorporates itself into the tattoo that shows his love of space. There’s a reason he’ll end up choosing the Galaxy Garrison and not the Air Force. 

Lance loves easily and freely. When he is eight, he tries to give a girl he has a crush on a flower from his mother’s garden and gets his heart broken for the first time. Shiro gets that flower on his rib cage, dead and crumpled. By the time Lance is fourteen, there’s a pile of dead flowers - each one a different kind for each person who has broken Lance’s heart is a different person - on Shiro’s ribcage for all the boys and girls he’s fallen for.

When Lance hits puberty and feelings of insecurity-anxiety- ** _notgoodenough_** hits full force. It is a feeling that will follow Lance throughout his life. Shiro gains raindrops between his shoulder blades, colored in sad swirling purples and blues and dark pinks. It’s a beautiful scene, but a sad one.

The day that Lance moves into his Garrison dorm and meets Hunk, a minimalist bear made of blocky line art appears on Shiro’s lower back. It’s a sign of how close they will be that the tattoo appears instantly. The placement a sign of how Hunk will always have Lance’s back, a sign of Hunk’s affection for Lance and Lance’s trust in Hunk.

 

 

Shiro finds out that Lance is his soulmate when Lance is a freshmen in the Garrison. The teachers like to throw Shiro at the new recruits for one of their introduction classes, like to remind them what they should be striving to become, so Shiro always ends up teaching one of the intro classes that all four classes - mechanic, communications, cargo pilots, and fighter pilots - has to take.

On the first day of class, Lance raises his hand to ask a question about something on their syllabus, uniform sleeve slipping down his arm and revealing the chain bracelet wrapped around that wrist and the charm attached to it. And the second Shiro sees it, he  _knows_  that that’s a tattoo for him, knows that the arm it belongs to belongs to his soulmate. 

He also knows that he is twenty-two, newly graduated from the Garrison, and that the boy he’s looking at is fourteen, still just a child. 

He doesn’t tell Lance. He makes sure all of his marks are hidden, an easy task given that he’s never gotten a face or hand tattoo and the Garrison uniforms cover all his others, so that Lance won’t see his and know the way Shiro did. It is not that he doesn’t want Lance, because Shiro has wanted his soulmate for his entire life, but that Lance isn’t ready for something like this and Shiro won’t let their bond take anything from Lance’s childhood. 

Shiro finds himself watching Lance though, keeping an eye on him because he wants to keep him safe. He mentions Lance to Keith a few times, getting information from his brother when he hasn’t seen Lance recently or can’t figure something out just by watching Lance. 

Watching Lance the way he does and getting to know him through his actions, Shiro grows to love Lance. Shiro doesn't exactly have a giant revelation, instead his love for Lance builds slowly and gradually until it's a part of Shiro that he can't ignore.It’s one of the easiest things he’s ever done, falling in love with Lance. 

A few months before the end of Lance’s Sophomore year, Lance comes to class with a small heart connected to the corner of his eye, colored in dark black. He knows that it’s a sign of what he feels for Lance, knows that it’s placement is because Shiro has been watching over Lance and will continue doing so for the rest of their lives. Shiro likes seeing it when he sees Lance in the halls, likes knowing that even if he’s keeping his distance for now Lance has something on him that shows Shiro’s love for  _him_  and not just Shiro’s life experiences. 

It’s the last mark either of them gets before Shiro goes on the Kerberos mission, but it’s not the last mark either of them will ever get. 


	2. purple leaves bruises

Shiro learns during his Galra imprisonment that his marks aren't the only type of marks in the universe. He learns about aliens with timers embedded on their wrists, about ones with telepathic bonds and ones with emphatic bonds, about aliens with just a singular mark someplace on their body - sometimes the mark is their soulmate's name and sometimes it's just a single tattoo like the ones that liter his body.

Shiro has always treasured his bond. He had spent too much of his childhood without one, too much of his childhood worrying that there wasn't someone one there for him, but he finds himself growing to treasure it even more during his time with the Galra. Seeing all the other types of bonds in the universe make him treasure the type of bond he has, makes him treasure all the things about Lance that he knows that he wouldn't without them being tied together the way they are.

He spends a lot of time thinking about his marks while he's imprisoned. He had always wondered about them, but he's never done any extensive research into trying to figure out what they mean. He'd been chasing his dreams, content to think that he would meet his soulmate while doing so. Then that turned out to be true and he met Lance and trying to figure out what they meant didn't seem so important because Lance was right there and one day Shiro would let him know they were soulmates and Lance would explain the marks to him himself.

The marks give Shiro hope in his darkest moments. He looks at the bands on his arms, thinks about how one day he's going to get out of here and make it back to Earth to see the ocean again. He traces about the flowers on his chest, thinks about how one day he's going to get the chance to ask Lance about the heritage that the boy is so proud of. He lays his fingers flat against the flowers on his ribcage, thinks about how one day he's going to show them to Lance and figure out why all of the flowers are dead and then do his damnest to make sure that nothing ever makes one appear again because he doesn't know what they are but he knows that dead flowers are something that only appears when one has been sad and heartbroken. He presses his thumb against the tiny purple poison apple that had appeared behind his ear, something that Shiro had only realized was there when one of the other prisoners pointed it out, and wonders what Lance is hearing that is so vicious that it will never leave him.

The marks give Shiro hope.

The Galra take his arm and the band of ocean that wraps around his bicep.

 

  
And galaxies away, Shiro's time with the Galra is marking itself all over Lance.

Tally marks appear on the back of his neck, counting each day of Shiro's imprisonment. They're tiny, tiny things. But a year is a long time and by the time Shiro escapes, the marks cover the entirety of the space. Every kill that Shiro has to make, every time that the Galra refuse to finish a match in the arena when Shiro incapacitates his opponent, a stone of a different shape and size appears under the sakura tree on Lance's lower-back.

And the day that they take Shiro's arm leaves bright red slashes all around Lance's shoulder. Shiro's anger and pain and hurt are ferocious and intense. These are feeling that he will never shake, feeling that will flare up when he looks at the prosthetic they give him instead.

 

  
Shiro escapes the Galra, but the crash afterwards affects his memories.

It doesn't take so much from him that he doesn't recognize Keith's voice when his brother comes to save him, doesn't take so much from him that he doesn't recognize Lance's when it joins him. It doesn't take so much that he doesn't know who they are and what they mean to him.

Everything is muddled and foggy in his head, nothing but flashes of sound and purple and a croaking voice. But these two, his brother and his soulmate, he remembers.

Relief pulses through him and there is some part of him that lets go of some of what he's held onto for a year, that lets him drift into unconsciousness as their arms wrap around him to move him.

He does not remember it, but he has spent the last year of his life being trusted with the lives of others without ever feeling truly safe of secure himself. But these two he trusts with his life. With these two he can let go of those strings of consciousness that he'd been clinging so tightly to and finally let his body relax, finally let himself pass out instead of enduring the pain that pulsed through him because he desperately needed to know what was happening even if he was too groggy to understand most of it.

With these two, Shiro can relax in a way that he hasn't in a year because he knows that he's safe with these two.


	3. what you keep secret

In the aftermath of the crash, when he wakes up in Keith's shack, Shiro thinks about telling Lance. It's a quiet thought, born from a year of horror and a desire to keep the person he loves close to him after all that he's been through, equal measures desire to keep Lance in his eyesight to make sure something doesn't happen to him and a desire to be around someone whose existence has always brought Shiro hope and joy.

It passes when he sees the tally marks on the back of Lance's neck.   
The sight of them hits Shiro like freezing water.   
Shiro has forgotten a lot, but not enough that he doesn't know what has been done to him. He hasn't lost so much that he doesn't know that he's broken and scarred. He hasn't lost so much that he doesn't hate himself for leaving such a dark mark, something that signifies a time when he was surrounded by so much evil and pain and hurt, on a boy who is so full of light and kindness.

He doesn't tell Lance.

Instead, when their doing introductions, he acts as though he simply remembers Lance from the Garrison. He acts as thought he remembers Lance from the class that Shiro taught him in, the class where Shiro saw the tattoo on Lance's wrist for the first time and was filled with so much /happiness.

"I should think you all for helping me out," Shiro says. He will not tell Lance what he means to him, but he can not help the desire to touch him. He steps forward, reaching a hand towards him. He does it with his prosthetic without thinking, but there's part of him that remembers how Lance's mark on that arm has been taken away from him and desperately wants to have some contact with Lance through it. A handshake isn't the ocean, but it's something. "Lance, right?"

 

 

 

The moment Lance sees Blue, the moment Blue looks into his eyes and sees his heart and decides that he is /hers/, a replica of her settles over Shiro's remaining wrist, right on his pulse.

His heart is covered in mariposas, covered in Lance's family, but the Blue Paladin is Voltron's heart and Blue's mark was never going to be far from Lance's.

 

 

 

In the days that follow their arrival at the Castle of Lions, Shiro settles back into his old routine of watching Lance, of watching the boy he loves from a distance and hoping that some of his sunshine will radiate far enough to reach him.

He watches Lance flirt with the princess, chest warm with fondness and amusement. Lance has always been a flirt and Shiro has never been jealous of the people Lance gives his attention to. It's hard to be jealous when it's Shiro's life marked out on Lance's skin. He's been even less inclined towards jealousy since realizing that he loved Lance, since Shiro left the mark near Lance's eye that's so hard to miss.

He listens to Lance's excited whoops and laughter during their training, closes his eyes for a moment and lets himself just revel in the sound. Lance has always been excitable. Shiro had always liked that about him, always liked the way Lance finds so much enjoyment in everything in his life - be it the people he surrounds himself with or the things he enjoys. He went an entire year without hearing Lance get like this. Now it's nice to just focus on it.

He keeps an eye on Lance when he's fighting with Keith torn between liking the passionate flush that covers Lance's face, thinking that Lance's arguments are actually pretty good for Keith, and desperately wanting his brother and soulmate to get along. It's confusing, but not in a bad way. Shiro gets confused a lot nowadays given the gaps in his memories. It never feels as good as the confusion that comes with now knowing how he feels about this.

Watching Lance is nice.

It's normal in a way, something from the past that Shiro hasn't given up.

That being said, it's probably the normality of it that makes Shiro so complacent.

 

 

 

An explosion rocks the castle when Lance is with Coran and Shiro is with the rest of the team.

Shiro searches out the source of it with the team, finds Coran injured but conscious.

There's relief for just a moment before the smoke clears, before Shiro sees Lance lying limp and unmoving on the ground.

He darts forward before the rest of the team, panic tight in his chest. He knows he should be cautious in the aftermath of an explosion, knows that he should be careful about moving Lance's body. But his soulmate is lying there and Shiro can't help the desire to touch him. He gets his arms around Lance, calls him name hoping feebly that it will do _something_.

It doesn't.

 

 

 

Hunk and Coran leave to get a crystal to power the ship, to bring back the infirmary so they can heal Lance.

Shiro stays with Lance, unwilling to leave him.

He gets caught up in a fight with Sendak.

He didn't think he could feel worse, but the moment when his fight gets interrupted by another Galra throwing Lance onto the ground is one of the worst times in his life. Because Lance was _hurt_  and out of commission and Shiro had gotten so caught up in a fight that he'd forgotten to take care of him, forgotten to watch over one of the most important people in his life.

 

 

 

Shiro gets captured again.

The worst part - this time Lance has been captured with him.

 

 

 

The team manages to save the day.

They all get back to the Castle of Lions alive.

They put Lance in a healing pod.

Shiro does not leave the room the entire time he's in it, does not take his eyes off the boy he almost lost.

 


End file.
